Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Puree of Rabbit
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the rabbit
Cut the meat off the back of the rabbit into two long fillets.
Wrap the remaining rabbit in buttered paper and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.
Remove the rabbit from the oven.
Cut all the meat from the bones.
Place the bones and rabbit pieces into a saucepan with the brown sauce.
Boil gently for 1.5 hours.
Remove from heat and strain the contents through a fine sieve.
Make the quenelles
Pass the fillets of rabbit through a sausage machine.
Pound the sausage machine output in a mortar.
Strain the pounded rabbit through a wire sieve.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Stir in the flour.
Add the milk and stir quickly until it boils. Let the mixture boil for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat.
Season the pounded rabbit.
Mix the seasoned rabbit with the panada.
Shape the mixture into quenelles using teaspoons.
Poach and serve
Butter a sauté pan. Add hot water to the pan.
Poach the quenelles for 10 minutes.
Place the quenelles in a hot tureen. Heat the soup. Pour the soup over the quenelles.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rabbit
- Provides the meat that forms the body of the quenelles and the flavour of the sauce.
- Brown sauce
- Supplies the liquid and rich savoury flavour for the soup served over the quenelles.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and milk into a panada that binds the quenelle mixture.
- Milk
- Moistens the flour roux to form a smooth panada that keeps the quenelles tender.
- Butter
- Enriches the panada and adds fat for a softer, richer texture.
The step that matters
Poach the quenelles gently. Quenelles are a delicate mixture of meat and panada. Simmering them in water that is hot but not boiling sets the proteins gently, so they stay tender and do not break apart or turn rubbery.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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